Morning journal and courier., 1887-05-10

twenty years ago is that those very pieces are being revived in despair, and that the walls are crossed with announcements of the Belle Helene," of "Orphee aux Enfers," and of sLa Chatte Blanche" the plays that delighted us when we were scarcely out of our boyhood There are play goers enough here; but the authors-aye, and even the &C., tors and actresses-are wanting; and bad as the play is in London, it is fresher and more clever and altogether better than the play in Paris, which we Londouers once deemed so unapproachable.
 As to books there are none. The days when every week produced some new work of art, if not of genius, from Octave Feuillet, Edmond About, Gustave Droz-the days of 'fTrente ct Quarante," of sLe Roman dun Jeune Homme Pauyre," of 'FMonsieur, Mad anne, ct Bebe," and of all the rest-are past
 and gone. Zola is not clever or imaginative;
 he is simply coarse and filthy; and the only
 book of any originality that the last few
 years have produced is Daudet's ''Tartarin sur les Alpes," which is indeed quite up to the old form. But what is one book2 And where are the new men? I neither see
 nor find any trace of them. There is indeed
 certain Guy de Maupassant who writes nov els inferior and less decent than Feuillet; but
 his books, though fairly skippable, are not, like Octave's, fully readable. In short, in all those departments of art wherein Paris was formerly pre- eminent and unapproachable, the great city has in fact disappeared. There is still the same immense and amusing self conceit, still the same lordly contempt for every created thing that is not Boulevard ier;" but the creative power, the delicacy, the wit, the admirable triaing which once justified the conceit and contempt are no longer here.
 Nor is it better so far as I can judge, with | regard to fashions. The Parisian glove and the Parls1au boot are still pre- eminent be- | lieve, but the dress of the Parisian woman of | fashion seems to have lost it's charm as com pletely as the books and the plays. ] can | not describe fashions; I only know what I l like; and I know that, instead of being l forced into admiration of whatever fashion 1 the Parisian woman chooses to adopt, as l once was, now see nothing in it either new or admira ble-no, nor anything ap- preaching the garb of our own dowdy, fresh, | human English women with their cloth l and cotton. There is a vast deal of orLa- | mentation, but there seems to be no idea in | their dress here. The headgear consists ] either in hat with broad brim broken l down on one side and turned up at the other, l or in a particularly ugly bonnet surmounted l by feathers flowers running up to point l a foot high. speak feelingly because hay | ing, as every we'll conducted male animal has l who comes here, mission to bring Cover the last thing from Paris," I solemnly de-
 clare that, having seen everything, all I can 1 find that is original or pleasing, or an i'm | pTOfeueAG oA LouooIl, IS SIGueT ldup upSuaoe
 or one of those really beautiful baskets of 1 flowers covered and knotted up with huge
 bows of bright ribbon, which have latterly
 been invented here.
 The one thing unfortunately that remains
 is the old conceit, the old swagger, the old assumption that Paris is the center and soul ] of the world, and the Boulevards the only
 road to earthly paradise. This conceit,
 when there something to be said for it,
 was amusing enough, but now it is only pitt
 able. Paris may still be believed in by those
 who know it or have heard of it as it was; to
 many it is still 8 convenient and ready fetish l used in moments of irritation to compare
 with our dull old London; but to those who
 have known it in former times Paris has gone, and in its place there is nothing but a
 Jew-ridden, 1noney-grasping, owl-crowned
 ruin of city, inhabited by Anarchists and
 trifers. Paris can no longer make even a
 bonnet joke, and it never could make
 anything else. Dear Paris has disappeared,
 and there remains only poor Paris. Where
 then, alas! we to go when we would be
 wicked and amuseds